Photo by Clara Kwon |
These are examples of the student’s work from this past week on lighting that I taught in the School of Photography 1, which is part of Youth With A Mission’s University of the Nations campus in Kona, Hawaii.
This class was the first time most of the course used studio strobes.
They learned how to use off-camera flash on location. The assignment required them to hand in one photo without a flash and one with it. Some of the student’s photos looked better without a flash, and sometimes you don’t need a flash.
The bread and butter assignment for a photographer is the environmental portrait. Taking a poor lighting situation and improving it was the purpose of the assignment, as well as knowing how to make it.
The students took a baseline photo without a flash and below the sync speed for their camera. Then they made a flash reading setting the strobe to be one stop greater than the aperture reading without the flash. They then only changed the aperture to the great one-stop aperture that was the flash setting. They were also encouraged to see if more power from the flash was better for the photo.
1:3 Lighting Ratio Assignment
In an earlier blog post, you can see the students’ assignments. First, they needed the leading light [key] at 45º from the camera, with the model looking straight into the camera. We did this to help them see the shadow across the nose. They then had a fill light one stop less than the leading light.
They could use different backgrounds from White, Gray, or color.
I think the students all did a great job, and in less than a week, each person had a potential of a couple of photos to add to their portfolios.